Taraxippos is my favorite Scout Rifle in Destiny
2, and it just got EVEN BETTER. I DO NOT want you to miss out on the perks for the
right god roll, because mine has been in constant rotation since last year's Guardian Games.
And I don't even like Scouts! See that's the thing, Taraxippos is not a
scout rifle. Taraxippos is a sidearm, and I think if you're using Taraxippos as only
a scout you are MISSING OUT. The stats, perks, recent crucible damage buff, and the new perk
pool for this year are all telling you that this weapon was built for the midrange. So
even if you don't like scouts, here's why you need a Taraxippos and what perks to look
out for during this year's guardian games: First, Taraxippos has my favorite intrinsic
perk in the game. Being a Lightweight weapon. Outside of exotics or getting amplified on
an arc subclass, running a Lightweight weapon is THE ONLY way to run faster in Destiny 2.
Higher mobility won't do it, but this Lightweight frame will give you 50% of an arc speed boost
for free. This scout is built for getting into the action.
The stats on Taraxippos completely complement the playstyle as well. It has some of the
worst range and zoom out of the other Lightweight scouts, but it stands above the rest in just
about every other category: Stability, Handling, Reload Speed, and Aim Assist. Specifically
Stability though! Along with Pleiades Corrector, Taraxippos has 7 to 10 more stability than
any other Lightweight. This Stability stat, this right here, is what we're going to be
leaning into, so remember that the natural stats are already showing us where to optimize.
Then Taraxippos takes things a step further than Pleiades Corrector with better Recoil
Direction and Airborne Effectiveness. Y'all, this is just an all around amazing lightweight
scout rifle in every stat except for that Range and Zoom, but listen. You don't need
those. Range is not the strength of this weapon,
it's just the bonus that comes with Trax being a scout rifle. It'll reach out as far as most
crucible engagements happen no matter what this stat looks like.
On top of the stats, Bungie also just gave Lightweights a new 5% damage buff. This is
in addition to the crit damage being raised to match the new sandbox health amount, so
you can now one body and 3 crit any resilience level. Previously you could only do that up
to 5 resil, now it's only 75% precision accuracy, making it easier to get on target in closer
midrange engagements. Now, why we're really here, the perks. Leaving the perk pool from last year's Guardian
Games are No Distractions, Outlaw, and Offhand Strike and honestly good riddance. Offhand
Strike was awful on Taraxippos, and we've got plenty of new and BETTER things to make
up for No Distractions and Outlaw leaving. I mean, these new perks are better than what
I was hoping for. I was looking for Discord in here, but instead we got Eye of the Storm,
Enlightened Action, and Precision Instrument, along with Keep Away being moved to the 3rd
column. These perks y'all, this is perfect. And Here's why. hopefully it'll help you pick
which of the god rolls I'll lay out in a minute. Also, if you like this kind of in-depth guide
to weapons, let me know by hitting the like or subscribe button, we're getting so close
to 50,000, so seriously thank you for that. Okay, First up, we've got Eye of the Storm.
Everybody is pretty much on board with Eye of the Storm being an amazing perk, but it
plays SO WELL into the way I use Taraxippos as a sidearm thanks to Cascade Point.
I'll cover PvE and a more normal way to use the scout in PvP with the new perks, but Cascade
Point is what makes Taraxippos a long range sidearm and what will benefit most from the
new perks. After getting a kill with a different weapon, or just hitting several crits, you
swap to Taraxippos and your RPM goes from 200 to 333. It is INSANE if you've never used
it, and I've found that you really need as much control as you can get when you're using
this perk. You're going to want to hit crits, because
this speed brings your TTK to .54 seconds, and if you stack it with radiant and all three
surge mods, you could even hit a 3 crit .36 second TTK up to 6 resil thanks to that new
5% lightweight buff, but most of the time you're going to be hitting that .54 seconds,
on any class, and it happens ALL the time. So still just amazing.
To emphasize how important it is you grab one of these, if you're still unsure about
all this, I will tell you Taraxippos is the best weapon I have ever used Cascade Point
on. For the range, the accuracy, the time to kill values... there is nothing like it.
If you are ever going to use this perk, this is the weapon to do it on.
All that said, you still want as much accuracy as you can get on it. That's why on the old
god roll, I chose Moving Target over Zen Moment. Zen Moment has to ramp up, and while it reduces
reticule bounce, I felt like that just didn't matter on Taraxippos to me. The accuracy and
aim assist mattered more! So Eye of the Storm up to -40% accuracy cone size and -17% accuracy
cone growth is a huge buff when proc'd. Since we're using Trax as a sidearm, or our
alternative weapon if you will, then we are probably weak from the engagement we were
just in to activate Cascade Point. So you'll have that extra handling bump from Eye of
the Storm to whip out the scout, and all the accuracy that comes with it. What an amazing
perk to pair with Cascade and it wasn't even on my radar.
One thing that was on my radar was keep away, which was previously in the 4th column and
you couldn't pair it with Cascade Point. Now you can, and it offers -5% accuracy cone growth
just for being 15 meters away from an opponent. Not as strong as Eye of the Storm, but it'll
be active even if you have full health, give you some extra range, and I could see lots
of people choosing this over Moving Target. Zen Moment, Moving Target, and Gutshot Straight
are all still here. One thing cool about Gutshot straight now, it basically nullifies the health
and body shot changes to the crucible. Allowing you to miss as many crits as you could before
without much punishment, that'll help out a lot if you're hitting tons of body shots
with Cascade Point active. Moving Target is still really good, but I think the new perks
are going to perform better for how I use Taraxippos. That said, if you're NOT using
Cascade Point, Precision Instrument over here WILL benefit from Zen Moment since it's ultra
important to hit those crits. On its own Precision Instrument won't do anything
for Taraxippos, but if you plan on using radiant to buff your initial engagement, you'll now
have a 3 shot at .6 seconds against any resilience level. If it wasn't for that 5% Lightweight
scout buff, it would only be up to 9 resil, but that buff is going to make this a solid
option if you do like the longer, you know, more normal scout rifle engagements.
In PvE, you've still got Fourth Times The Charm, Gutshot Straight, Kill Clip, Focused
Fury, Hatchling and Explosive Payload, but no matter how you choose to run it, the new
perk that shines through the most is Enlightened Action.
Okay, let's say you want to run Cascade Point in PvE. You get a kill, swap to this weapon
and nail off 4 shots to quickly take down something. In just 4 shots Enlightened Action
puts your Handling at 100 and Reload Speed at 99. You can reload and stow this weapon
ridiculously fast and move on. A very fun playstyle, but it doesn't end with just Cascade.
you could use Precision Instrument to lay into an opponent for High Damage or Hatchling
to play into the Strand verbs as well. It will ALL play into Enlightened Action perfectly
because you're going to be hitting those shots and you're going to want that fast reload
speed. Doesn't even have to be crits. Speaking of not hitting crits, Gutshot straight
is just a flat 20% buff to any body shots you miss crits on in PvE and Explosive Payload
is basically a 15% damage buff to any body shots you hit. So you can stack them together
to hit a 38% buff and nearly be hitting crit damage every time you miss that crit. It's
like the ultimate forgiveness for the inaccurate player, and I can appreciate that. Okay, now how do we spec out the rest of Taraxippos,
what are the god rolls? For PvP, GO FOR STABILITY. I'm telling you,
I've played around with this a lot. I tried all the range rolls, I tried going for strictly
recoil control, but no, stability is what made Taraxippos feel great. Counterbalance
helped a lot too, so no matter which roll you go with, I'd use that mod. For the rest,
Chambered Compensator for a bit of recoil control with the stability was my favorite,
but corkscrew, polygonal, and smallbore would all do fine. Aim for a stability masterwork,
and then Accurized Rounds to top it off with a bit of range. Steady Rounds was alright,
but it didn't feel necessary to push it THAT far.
If you run my way and go cascade point for the long range sidearm, Moving Target is the
solid option, Keep Away might help even a touch more, but Eye of the storm is going
to be my ultimate god roll. Looking through my clips, the amount of times I engage for
Cascade Point and am low on health is ridiculous. More than any other weapon I could use this
with. You are going to want to push in and use that perk, and now you have a huge buff
when you do so. What an excellent pairing. Don't forget about the origin trait, Omolon
Fluid Dynamics, either! I highly recommend running this over Classy Contender for Cascade
Point since it will give you up to 20 stability at the top of the mag. In other words, when
you have cascade point active. We're already spec'ing into stability, and now we're almost
maxing it. I am going to be grinding Guardian Games SO hard for this roll.
If you're worried about too many body shots with cascade point in the new sandbox, go
for gutshot straight. Lean into the sidearm aspect and just don't worry about the changes
to PvP. You can just bypass it and have fun. If you're going to run this out of the box
with Precision Instrument for that .6 second 3 tap while Radiant, I would run all these
perks exactly the same, but I'd emphasize Zen Moment in the 3rd column with Keep Away
and Moving Target as alternatives. Eye of the STorm is probably not going to come into
play with this one. For PvE, I'd look out for Enlightened action
in that 3rd column, and then run Smallbore, Accurized, and maybe a range masterwork. You'll
be hitting 100 range and handling ALL the time with enlightened Action, and that'll
let you focus on range and stability in the other columns. Personally I'm pairing this
with Cascade Point simply because it's really fun, and this season we've got unraveling
rounds from orbs and then threadlings coming out of your unraveled kills, it's just a blast,
but I can see the appeal of going for Precision Instrument or Kill Clip for pure damage.
I got to mention too, I had all that stuff proc in a Trials round this weekend, unraveling
orbs and horde shuttle from the artifact mod, and all those strand verbs combined just ended
my 1v3. I didn't even have to engage the opponent. The STrand stuff did it. From only three shots
of Taraxippos. Okay, back to PvE. I do want to point out the Gutshot Straight
and Explosive head combo we mentioned in the perks, a flat 38% buff to all body shots in
PvE, if you go that route you're going to have to pick up the reload speed and handling
elsewhere, so look for Fluted Barrel, Flared Magwell, and a reload Masterwork.
All in all, I don't think much has changed for PvE here. Really surprised to not see
slice on the perk menu, BUT we saw HUGE perk upgrades the PvP selection and I want to end
this video saying DO NOT PASS UP THE CHANCE TO GET A TARAXIPPOS. It is in my top 3 favorite
PvP primaries this past year. I absolutely love it. I'm not hyping this up. Anytime there
is a large map, I'm off my sidearm and I'm on my Taraxippos. If you have one, do you
enjoy it as much as I do? Let me know in the comments below.
This has been Legoleflash, until next time, GG.
